Real receive wake-up call after reliance on miracles runs out

Knack of winning tight games came to a shuddering halt on Saturday but it is still hard to bet against Ancelotti's side

- Sid Lowe

At the end of Real Madrid's 4-4 draw with Real Sociedad last week, Carlo Ancelotti was asked whether there had been any point at which he feared for their place in the Copa del Rey final. He had watched his team go 1-0, 3-1 and 4-3 down, the game heading into extra time before Antonio Rüdiger's goal after midnight gave them a 4-4 draw, allowing them to scrape through 5-4 on aggregate. But he said no. "Because," he reasoned, "anything can happen here." And that, you couldn't help wondering, may be precisely the problem.

The pity for Arsenal may be that Madrid found that out three days later, tangible warning arriving in time for their visit to London. It's one thing to say it, another to actually experience it, to be faced with your own flaws, your own vulnerabilities when you felt invincible.

No one has made the ridiculous as routine as have Madrid, the implausible happening so often it feels inevitable. Destiny, fate, fortune... whatever you call it, whichever theory you favour or conspiracy you subscribe to in explaining the endless comebacks, there was a certain logic there, too: they have the players, the talent. Everyone knows that; so do they, which may not always help, willing them on to take risks, to play the odds, which one day become too great even for them.

On Saturday, Valencia went

1-0 up at the Santiago Bernabéu.

Four minutes into the second half Vinícius Júnior equalised and, although it lacked the drama or noise of a European night, Madrid began to tighten the screw.

The minutes went by, the final whistle coming closer, which only made the comeback feel more inevitable, until in the 95 minute the winner arrived. Only this time it came at the other end and may have cost Madrid the title, Hugo Duro's header leaving them four points behind Barcelona with eight games to go.